The Good Father
by DanceswithElvis
Summary: Ryoko reflects on her life with Kagato and finds she needs time to herself to think about her future and what her life with Tenchi may hold.


On days like today, I sometimes regret how my life has turned out. All this _humanity_ and _getting in touch with my feelings wears thin after a while.  Death and destruction are the two things I know the most about. Oh, don't get me wrong, I enjoy this planet and living on it with Tenchi; but, sometimes I miss my old life.  The life I had before I integrated with Zero, and suddenly had more emotion than I could capably deal with. The one I led before that old bastard Yosho imprisoned me in that damned cave._

I often feel I should have followed my instincts and ignited the atmosphere of this planet when Yosho and I crashed here all those centuries ago.  I'm not sure what made me stop from burning this world down, but I did and ended up getting imprisoned for my trouble.  For centuries I let myself basically rot, hoping that by some divine providence that my decaying body would poison Yosho's water supply.  Admittedly, it wasn't a great plan but I didn't have a lot to work with at the time.  

I still resent being imprisoned, but not for the reasons everybody automatically assumes.  The assumption is that I was Kagato's marionette, a so called _child under the control of an evil monster and had no control over what I did.  That's not entirely true.  But to really understand this, you have to understand my relationship with Kagato._

The Galaxy Police and pretty much everybody else in the known universe, including my own so called _mother_, think that Kagato used torture, rape and various types of mind control to command my actions.  The thought makes me laugh.  Kagato was a lot of things, but he wasn't a child molester and torturing me would have got him no where because of my regenerative abilities and tolerance to pain.  Now on the issue of mind control…he did use it on me, but only when he felt I was hesitating or he had a specific task he wanted completed.  No, Kagato was a real mean son of a bitch, but he was above indulging in behavior he deemed too base for his _higher_ nature.  

I guess you could say that he was my father; there has been more than enough evidence to suggest that theory, though it really doesn't matter.  He was the only parent I've ever known.  I can't say Kagato was a father figure in the traditional sense, more like a drill instructor or a general and I was one of his soldiers.  There was no _father daughter love between us; I admired, respected and feared him.  To him I was a soldier, a useful tool, someone he could trust to carry out his orders.  _

That's right.  I carried out his orders of my own free will.  He taught me to be the best soldier and assassin in the galaxy.  He showed me the art of igniting the atmosphere of a planet and then watching as it burned into a lifeless hull.  I may have changed a lot from the monster I used to be, but I have no regrets about my past.  I've destroyed too much and killed too many to feel guilty; I'll let the gods sort it out when I die.  

It's funny; I never really hated Kagato until Yosho defeated me.  I resent Yosho…almost to the point of hate, but not quite.  After Yosho took my jewels and shut me away from the rest of the world in that cave, I waited.  I waited for a couple of centuries before I finally accepted that Kagato was not coming for me and I hated him for it.  He had abandoned me.

Then after Tenchi saved me from my prison, Kagato had the nerve to arrive in a flourish of snow and light and demand that I obey his orders.  I guess you could say he was shocked at my refusal, but then again, his expression was always unreadable.  I do know he was annoyed with me and took control of my actions.  That was the first time he had _ever_ used his power to overtly try to control or hurt me in such a manner.  Something had happened to change him in those seven hundred years of my imprisonment.  Or maybe I had changed.  Regardless, his actions lead to his own demise and the liberation of the woman who created me.  No matter what she says, Washu may have had a hand in my creation, but she is not my mother.  

Even on this primitive frontier planet, a mother is expected to care for her young, not experiment and torture.  In truth, I've suffered more in the months since that red-haired bitch was released from her stasis, than I _ever suffered under the hand of Kagato.  Watching Tenchi grow up, observing how his mother cared for and treated him, I came to the over all conclusion that the over courted sentiment of love actually existed.  Not in that grand all consuming flame of passion that frivolous men and women wax poetic about.  No…love is the sense of belonging.  That quiet peace of knowing you are not an outsider…knowing where you belong.  _

But, that brings me to the reason for all of this.  I'm leaving.  Not for good or anything, I just need to get out and do some thinking away from Tenchi and away from that red haired bitch who wants me to call her "mommy" while she tortures me in her lab. Anyway, I'll be back in a few months or so.  Good bye, good luck and Ayeka keep your hands off of my man!


End file.
